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Sex Positive

Layne and I fuck. A lot. We also experiment a lot with sex, with our roles, with who we are, we use fantasy and play and exploration as doorways into who we are.

And we just really like to fuck each other.

Sex is important to me. Sex with my partner is really important to me. I’m not the kind of man who is able to accept the idea that maybe one day we won’t fuck anymore, that we will be life partners who have outside sex partners.

Because sex is about intimacy. And sharing. It’s about closeness. Even when it’s nasty and piss and cum filled, even when he is spitting in my mouth and pissing on my face, there is still the connection, the love. And that is essential to me.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying sex is the most important part of a relationship, but it is up there. Along with trust, and love, and friendship, and loyalty, and kindness, and respect.

I think sometimes it’s too easy to say, well, we don’t fuck anymore but we are still partners. It’s too easy to open things up and fuck other guys, and then there’s no more incentive to do the work it takes to still feel sexy toward your partner. Because sometimes it takes work. And creativity. (I want to be really clear…this is just my take on what I want out of my relationship. I think if you find love and partnership and someone you want to share your life with…then fuck anyone else’s opinions. There’s a million ways of doing this. This is just my way.)

Layne and I aren’t open. I say we are monogamous. Layne tells me that is ridiculous. We can fuck anyone we want as long as we do it together. That’s our rule right now. Maybe Layne is right and that isn’t strict monogamy, but I think for me it’s the closest to monogamy I can imagine getting.

It allows us the freedom to explore our sexuality, to have adventures, but to also share in them together. Other guys become a way of enhancing our sexuality as a couple.

I love watching my man fucking another dude. I love watching him make out with another guy. I love sharing a bottom with him, or getting fucked by him and another top. I love watching him suck dick. And then I love going home and cuddling up in bed and just being us: Layne and Jeff.

I use those moments to jerk off to. I think I’m lucky that jerking off to my man is still one of the hottest things I can think of.

Recently Layne blindfolded me and restrained my hands behind my back with his belt and he fucked me stupid, till I couldn’t think any longer, he fucked me into oblivion and he kept on going. At one point he used the belt to spank me. Forcing me into submission.

It was incredibly hot. But it also scared me. Not because of anything Layne did, but because I felt new desires opening in me. New hungers. And it scared me because it meant I was going to have to trust Layne. To really open up to him.

It isn’t easy for me to be vulnerable. To allow people to see my weaknesses and my insecurities. I have built giant walls to protect me.

As a kid I used to tell elaborate lies to hide myself in. I would create vast and epic stories about myself. As an adult I still have this capacity. I’m a writer. A story teller.

It’s hard for me to be honest. It’s hard for me to let you see who I really am. Because what if who I really am is boring, or unloveable, or ugly? What if who I really am is worthless?

Which is funny, because I spend so much of my time writing about my personal life for all of you. But even that is obfuscation. Character building. Using the truth as a way of shielding who I am.

But relationships, if I want them to work, are the one place I can’t hide who I am. I have to find a way to be honest. To trust. I have to find a way to let him in. To allow him to love the ugliest parts of me, not just the good parts.

A few nights ago, Layne had me on my back, my legs up, he was deep inside me, moving really slow, kissing me, his face pressed up against mine. My eyes were closed. I was shut away, losing myself in the sensation of him. When I opened my eyes I saw him, eyes open, watching me.

He smiled at me and said, “Hey.”

And for that one moment everything fell away. For that one moment I felt seen. I tried to keep my eyes open, I tried to not disappear, to be present with him.

Relationships are hard as fuck. For me, a sober alcoholic drug addict who is probably codependent as hell, the hardest part is finding my own space. Allowing myself time to breathe and to be aware. To be my own man. To not turn my dude into a drug. To not get lost in the intoxication of our sex. To not drown in someone else.

Even when all I want to do is drown. To get fucked so far out of my head I never come back. To get lost in him, to save him, to forget myself.

I am a man who has always been hungry for a certain kind of self-annihilation.

So I walk this balance every day, between allowing for truth, and vulnerability, and making space for myself but also allowing for him, for being my own man, and for being the man who loves to worship Layne’s fat dick (I mean seriously, I scored when it comes to this dude’s dick. Just saying.).

And here’s the thing I really want, the thing I am working toward with all my heart: I don’t have to lie to get anyone to love me, I don’t need anyone to tell me my I have worth, I do not need to pretend I am someone else just to prove I am not ugly. I, all of us, not matter how fucked up we might be, are beautiful.

It’s just really hard to remember that. When all we want is to be loved perfectly, and to be safe, to be made whole.

Layne can’t do that for me. No matter how much I want him to. And I can’t do it for him. And the longer we try, the more we try to be everything for each other, the more we will just hurt each other.

So I am trying to support him, and to love him, even when he is flawed and human. And I am trying to remember that even when I lie, or do something ugly, I am still worthy, I am still beautiful.

It’s funny. I didn’t think this piece was going to turn into a new age go love yourself post. I was planning to write about this amazing adventure we had in Palm Springs where we fucked a bunch of guys and had a really romantic date, and swam in a pool and became best friends. I mean, I still plan to write that piece. But I guess I needed to say all this first.

I met Ivan in Berlin a year ago. We had been chatting on Scruff for a few days and finally decided to meet at Populus Cafe on the canal in Kreuzberg.

At the time Ivan was in Berlin studying Political Science for a year, before returning home to Russia.

Ivan was 22 years old. He had come out when he got to Berlin. But he was still careful on social media, didn’t show his face on the apps, never sent out any sex pics with his face in them.

Because he was afraid.

Being gay in Berlin was a lot different than being gay in Russia.

“It would destroy my mother.” He said to me. We were sitting at one of the tables outside. People rode bikes, they walked hand in hand, drinking beers and flat whites, laughing. The City was alive with summer. “My brothers would kill me.”

“When do you go back?”

“Three Weeks. I’ve been looking for a job here, but it isn’t easy. My Visa ends. I’m not an EU Citizen.”

We walked along the canal and made out on one of the many bridges. He held me tight. He ran his hand down my back and grabbed onto my ass.

“I wonder if I’ll ever be able to do this again.”

“Make out with a guy?”

“Like this. Out in the open. Not caring what anyone thinks. Not being afraid.”

We spent the rest of the day at his apartment in Mitte. We fucked and made food and watched bad horror movies and fucked some more.

A week later I returned to Los Angeles. Another city where you can make out and hold hands and love whoever you want.

In May, right around the time of my birthday, Ivan messaged me on Instagram.

“I am in Amsterdam visiting a friend for a few days. I tested HIV Positive. I am afraid. I don’t know what will happen if I go back. I am afraid to go to the doctors. I am afraid to tell my family. I keep reading your stories about being HIV Positive and they give me hope. You make me feel less alone.”

A few weeks ago I was with my boyfriend, Layne, in Hollywood. We were picking up movie tickets on Hollywood and Highland. Swarms of tourists. Families from all over the country taking pictures with Spider Man and Darth Vader and Michael Jackson.

We were holding hands. A father gave us a look of disapproval and he said something to his little boy. The boy laughed. For a moment I thought about pulling my hand away, avoiding any conflict or embarrassment.

Instead I held on tighter. I got on my tippy toes (Layne is six feet to my five five so I have to reach high for kisses!) and kissed him.

Because this is my city. My world. And no one gets to tell me I can’t hold my boyfriend’s hand on the street.

And who the fuck knows? Maybe that little boy will grow up into a big ole queer teenager and he will remember the two guys making out right there, in the middle of the street, not giving a fuck what his dad or anyone else thought.

And that’s the point. That’s why. Every time we hold hands in public. Every time we kiss those we love (or just like or want to fuck) on the street. Every time we say I love you or show intimacy and affection, we are making a statement to the world: That we are here. And you are not alone.

I got an email a while back regarding a story of mine:

“I read your blog piece, “Getting Pissed on Taught me the Secret to Being Free”. You and your partner should be ashamed. I am a gay man. I do not live in liberal California. I believe in Jesus and in restraint and monogamy. It is gay men like you, sexual deviants and predators, who are teaching the straight-normal world that we are all amoral perverts. We will make America Great Again, and there will be no place for men like you.”

He’s absolutely right. I am a sexual deviant and a pervert, and I do not give a fuck what straight, normal, gay, or anyone else thinks about that. This is my life. My sexuality. My relationship. And I live according to my values.

To be kind and loving. To be honest (or as honest as I can be). To be open. To try to grow. To be tolerant. To have compassion for myself and those around me.

And to be visible so those who can’t be will know they aren’t alone.

I write about getting pissed on and group sex and getting fucked in public. I write about falling in love. I write about my struggles with jealousy and fear and intimacy, about getting sober and being HIV Positive. I try to explore all of who I am openly and honestly because I can. Because I will not be jailed, I will not be beaten, my family will not turn their backs on me.

I think those of us living in places like LA and New York, San Francisco and Chicago, have an obligation to be visible. Whether you’re two dads or two moms raising a family, trans or gender fluid, a slut or asexual, open or monogamous, we need to be seen: all of us. The whole spectrum.

Because there are people out there like my friend Ivan who are afraid that they will die if they express their truth.

So for them, I’m gonna keep screaming it as loud and as graphically as I can.

“If I were you I’d take off all my clothes and sit in the shower with the water off.”

I feel my dick get hard.

“I’ll go do that now.” I text back.

“Good boy. Wait for me.”

I strip naked and get on my knees in the shower. I hear Paco start to bark, then the front door opens.

I close my eyes and breathe in deep.

The bathroom door opens and I am overwhelmed by how handsome he is. He is dressed in a blue button-down oxford, dark pants. He has just come from work.

He smiles when he sees me. The way he smiles makes me feel proud.

I watch as he unzips his pants and pulls his cock out. I brush my face against it, my cock hard in anticipation, and then he is pissing.

I lean my head back, letting it run over my face, into my mouth: I drink it and let it run over my head and down my back.

He must have been saving it for me. He likes to spoil me.

When he is done I take his cock in my mouth: it is hard too. I kiss it, stroking it. Then I stand.

Layne kisses me, tasting his piss on my mouth.

“Shower. I’ll be waiting in the bedroom.”

He leaves me to wash off.

In the bedroom he fucks me like he owns me. He holds me down, teasing my hole then pounding it, kissing the back of my neck, biting at my ear lobes, he holds me tight as he grinds into me, saying my name, reminding me that I am his, to use, to do what he wants with.

When he cums he rams it in deep, pinning me to my bed, his weight heavy on me.

When I jerk off his fingers are deep in my hole, and he talks me through, working me to that place where he is in total control.

When I cum it shoots far, and then he is kissing me, wrapping his arms around me, and I am laughing.

I always laugh when he makes me cum.

Some people might call me a sexual deviant. Or a slut. Or kinky, or into fetishes, or a bottom or a sub, or a top, a bear, a daddy, queer, gay, masculine, feminine, but I’m done with these labels. With the ways we divide and separate each other. The ways we try to make ourselves feel special or elevated, above someone else. I am done with the idea that being kinky, or deviant, or open or poly, or monogamous, or vanilla, or into leather, or any word we use to somehow establish an elitist idea of how someone should behave or be are the things that define who I am.

I like when Layne pisses on me. Not because I am into piss play but because I am into Layne. I am into exploring the boundaries of sex and dominance, the limits of who I am and who he is.

But I also like to cuddle and watch Schitt’s Creek.

I also really love “vanilla” boyfriend sex. The kind of sex where we are both just chasing our nut. Sometimes that is my favorite kind of sex.

What makes something a kink or a fetish? One person piggy and another not? Why can’t we just like what we like without labeling it? Without using it to divide ourselves?

I’m not saying I don’t think communities aren’t valuable. I think finding like-minded people who share your preferences is essential to no longer feeling like a deviant, an outcast, alone. I think celebrating our sexual identities, our desires, celebrating who and how we love, is the way we become visible: the way to acceptance from ourselves and others.

By being visible we normalize what can sometimes seem foreign or threatening.

I like trying on different labels, different fetishes, exploring the ways in which my sexuality expands and grows, but I do not want to be defined or limited by these desires.

Just because I loved that moment when Layne was pissing in my mouth and all over my face doesn’t mean I don’t also love when he holds me tight and whispers that he loves me, looks into my eyes, the moments when we are vulnerable, when I am jealous and scared and he reminds me of who I am.

The minute I allowed myself to stop thinking of myself as a label I was able to discover a vast landscape of possibilities.

I think this is what it means to be sex-positive. To be aware of the ways in which we limit ourselves and each other. To stop viewing our sexuality as something transactional.

There is a whole world of experiences out there just waiting. I want to be free to explore them, to be open to them, I want to feel secure enough and happy enough to trust that I can move outside the boundaries I have created for myself and try something new.

So I’m gonna keep writing about them. Keep trying to make sense of who I am and who I am becoming. And maybe it’s arrogant to think this, but I can’t help but believe that by doing this, by being as open and honest as I can be, maybe I am helping to light a path, to let others know they are safe too, that we get to be as big and as vast as we want to be.

To be pissed on and fucked, to dominate and submit, to follow all our desires and fetishes without shame or stigma.

We are lying in my bed, there are candles burning, scented sage and lavender.

I am on my stomach. Layne is on top of me, the full weight of him pinning me to the bed. An arm is wrapped under my neck, pulling me up slightly.

“All of this,” he says, his cock pushing deeper into me, grounding me, filling me until there is nothing left, “is mine.”

He begins to fuck me harder, his arm tightening around my neck: reminding me of what he has just told me: that I belong to him.

My cock is so hard it hurts, but I won’t cum until he does. I won’t allow myself release until I know he is totally satisfied.

I have allowed myself to explore my sexuality: to be the dominant top, the dirty fisting piss daddy, the lover, group sex, gang bangs, public sex, I have been a master and an alpha, brutal and kind, all in the relentless pursuit of the edges of who I was.

But it is here, in my bed, pinned underneath the man I love, his cock pounding into me, that I find my real frontiers: the edges of experience that had always seemed just out of reach.

No matter how scared I get, or jealous, or insecure, I know, that I am safe with him. Even when we are in the middle of some pointless fight that doesn’t seem to end, I am safe here.

It is that sense of safety that allows me to feel free to express my needs, and to be open when he expresses his.

Last weekend Layne and I went to Por Detroit, an afterhours party from Mexico City that takes place in a warehouse in Downtown LA.

We arrived at 1:30 in the morning. The music pulsed through the room, all around us people were dancing. The room burst into cheers as the DJ elevated us, pulled us along, pushing us to the edge and then pulling us back.

Layne slipped his hands down the back of my jeans, his fingers playing around my hole, tickling it, his teeth nibbling at my ear. My hand went straight for his cock. He was hard: he has the perfect dick, big and fat, the kind of dick I want inside me all the time.

“Look how hard you make me, baby,” he whispered in my ear. “That’s what you do to me.”

He led me through the crowd: drag queens and queer royalty, club kids and muscle bears and art fags, queer kids and gender-fluid, dancing and laughing, losing themselves: and I remember thinking: this is my world, my friends, my family: this is where we are safe. Parties like Por Detroit and Ostbahnhof, these worlds of music and dance on the fringes of the City, are where we, the freaks, beautiful and glorious, get to come to be who we really are, where we get to be loved and celebrated.

Layne lead me into the dark room. He took me in his arms, kissing me, pulling me into him, in the middle of that room: surrounded by people fucking and falling in love, sucking and exploring desires that only exist inside those moments: at night, in the darkness of a club where all of us come together to share our bodies and our fantasies and he pushed me to my knees, taking his dick out and my mind went blank, the only thing I knew in that moment was that cock, and how bad I needed it.

We moved toward the back of the room, where a tall muscular man in his 50’s dressed in a leather harness and leather jeans was getting his dick stroked by a sexy boy in a jock strap.

“Do you want to suck his dick, baby?” He asked me.

I dropped to my knees, sucking on the man’s dick. When I looked up, Layne was licking his nipples, rubbing him.

Standing up, Layne said to me, “How was it?”

“Why don’t you see for yourself?” I said.

I loved watching Layne suck that dude’s dick. I love how much my man loves to suck dick.

And I love that we get to be there, together, exploring all the sides of our sexuality, not limiting ourselves, and not limiting each other.

But here is the other truth: none of this is easy all the time. I can be a jealous cave man, full of fury and insecurity. And I am learning that I need to share these parts of who I am with Layne as well: that by sharing the whole truth of who I am, the ugly and the beautiful, the scared and the proud and the sadness and the joy, only then will we be truly open to each other.

Because, for me, that is the point: I don’t want either of us to limit the other. Not because we are afraid. I want my dude to grow and explore, not just sexually, but as a man, a human, an artist, and I want the same.

And I believe we can do that together. If we are honest with each other.

Someone recently asked me why I need to always write about sex, and in such a “pornographic way”.

I really thought about that: because sure, I want to turn you on, I want your dicks to get hard, I want you wet and I want to make you horny, and I want you to validate me, but I also want to say,

Whoever you are, you are okay. That we are all in this together. And sex is fun. And love is vast and beautiful and scary and that we, all of us, are full of such potential, if we allow ourselves to reach it. That we should be allowed to be our biggest, fullest selves.

I am lucky. I live in a city that is open and tolerant. I live in a world that allows me to explore the boundaries of my desires, that allows me to explore who I am as an artist and a man, as a top or a bottom, as a lover and a partner, as a fucking human being. Not everyone is as lucky as I am.

So I write. About who I am. About my adventures. My relationships. Sometimes I fuck it all up. Sometimes I participate in something really amazing.

But this is the bottom line: you are fucking beautiful. Whoever you are. You deserve the right to be the kind of human being you want to be.

And also, sex is fucking fun. We all need to lighten the fuck up. Go out, get laid, have fun, fall in love, fuck your whole life up and then recreate it all into something new and magnificent, because here’s the other thing: this ride is going to end. We might as well get everything out of it we can.

This is an excerpt from a new book I am working on. Everything happens just as I say. Mostly. Photo Credit: Tom Bianchi.

When I was 18 I spent a few weeks in Fire Island at my friend Patrick’s father’s house. Patrick’s dad was gay. He was an art dealer, but there were rumors he was also a thief, or a gangster, I once heard he was smuggling guns for revolutionaries or cartels.

Patrick wasn’t my boyfriend but we used to fuck. We were young and horny and if we weren’t getting high or drunk or sticking our dicks in each other we were fighting over books and Heidegger, Marxist theory and how magic manifests in our lives.

Patrick was tall and athletic, curly black hair and green eyes, he had a long fat uncut dick and a fat ass from soccer and swimming. To this day I still jerk off thinking about Patrick.

I loved lying in bed with him, or sneaking out to the pool in the early dawn, still high as fuck and wanting more, or onto the beach, talking all night, holding each other, taking turns fucking each other, making out and telling each other our dreams.

We both wanted so much back then.

At 18 I wanted to fall in love, to fuck the world, to rise as high as I could, and then to freefall as deep as possible.

I never told Patrick that one night, while he was out dancing, I stayed up drinking beers with his father. I never told him that I ended up on my knees, on that kitchen floor, sucking his father off, and that once in a while, when we were alone, his dad would sneak into my room and fuck me, whispering in my ear that he owned me and that my ass belonged to him, and that I was right where I was supposed to be: pinned to the earth by his big dick.

One Saturday night I had stayed out at the club after Patrick had gone home. The night was beautiful: warm and balmy, the sky that endless sparkling brilliance that only happens in my memories, the world lit up in fire.
I was high and drunk and all around me men danced and laughed. They grabbed me and kissed me, holding me tight, whispering I love you and I need you. We fucked right there on the dance floor, stomping our feet and howling up into the sky: screaming out our names as loud as we could.

It was 1987 and we were dying: all around us, our friends and lovers, our community, were getting sick and dying.

But on that night, for those few minutes we raged against the inevitable, against the loss and the fear and the despair: we danced, and we fucked, and we howled until there was nothing left: just the ecstasy piercing the night, elevating us, reminding us that we were human, that we were alive: on that night the world was full of magic and possibility: and we were full of love.
I decided to walk home along the beach. At one point I cut through a path, through a grove of trees and dunes. In the dark I heard men laughing and moaning and I stepped off the path, into the trees, in search of adventure.

It was like stumbling into a magical ceremony: a coven of witches: a circle of warlocks. In the trees, hidden from the walk way, a group of 20 or so guys stood around passing joints and bottles of wine, taking turns fucking this stunning muscle guy bent over a large tree trunk that must have found its way to the shore from the depths of the ocean.

Sitting alone on a rock was a dark-haired boy with a thick beard. He couldn’t stop watching as men took turns pounding themselves into the muscle guy.
I sat on the rock next to him. He told me his name was Adam. He was getting his PH’d in Theoretical Physics and was on the Island for a wedding.

I offered to split a tiny blue pill I found in my pocket with him.

“What is it?” he asked me.

“I have no clue,” I laughed. “But it makes everything really fucking beautiful.”

We made out on that rock and he told me how the world was not how it looked: that the physical world was a deception, a lie, but that the truth was there, hiding, playing a game with us: calling out to us.

“You can see it if you really look. Out of the corners of your eyes. Reflecting in the surfaces all around us.” He took my hands in his, his lips brushing my lips: I felt my heart quicken, my dick was so hard it hurt. “You and me. This separation: it’s a lie. There is nothing between us. You and me, we are connected.”

We ended up leaving the coven of fucking magicians and walked to the edges of the world, the ocean dark and stunning, the moon a sliver of gold. He kissed me and told me that he believed that we were endless beings: infinite and forever.
He kept saying those words to me: “We are infinite and forever.”

When the sun began to rise he told me he had somewhere to be.

When we kissed goodbye I felt what he had said to me: infinity and connectedness: I felt forever.

Later that day Ryan and I walked home along the beach from the gym. Ahead of us was a wedding: a man and a woman standing on the edges of the ocean. When we got closer I saw the man was Adam.

For a moment our eyes connected, and in his were a kind of pain and sadness I didn’t understand at the time: they were full of loss. And then he looked away, to the woman he would marry.

When I told Ryan he said,

“Everyone is so fucked up.” He took my hand in his, leading me away from the Ocean and Adam. “Fucked up and beautiful. We’re all locked in this crazy madhouse together and the only way out is through it. Till the fucking end.”

“Yeah. Till the fucking end.”

I still can’t escape that feeling of magic. Of something larger than life happening to me. Those moments, our bodies pressed together, the taste of his breath, the smell of him: I can’t escape that feeling that we knew each other. For who we really were.

At least for a few moments.

“We are infinite and forever,” he said to me.

I feel it. 32 years later. I can feel the way those words became a part of me. Defined me.

32 years later I can feel what it was he was saying to me: that there is a magic in this world, a purpose and a meaning, it is burning right here in front of us. It is ours if we choose it.

Infinite and forever. Burning bright and strong.

I can close my eyes in this moment, here and now, and still taste him: I can feel the warmth of his skin, the timbre of his voice.

And I can feel every man I have ever loved. Every man I have ever fucked. Every man who has ever been inside me: I can feel us all, in these moments, howling like mad men at the night, raging against the future, running full speed from the past, desperate and mad and in love.

Connected.

Thanks for reading. If you want to read more, go check out my book, Accidental Warlocks, on Amazon. Support queer artists!

I’m really fucking permissive. I think everyone should do what they want, should explore sex and relationships and love how they want. I don’t like the idea of enslaving your partner(s) in prisons built on restrictive rules. I think we should challenge ourselves and grow: to be open to each other’s needs as well as our own.

“It’s like if I don’t let him fuck whoever he wants, whenever he wants, then I’m the one being unreasonable.” Tim and I are at Lemonade on Larchmont. It’s sunny out: a break in the rain. “I don’t want to go out to a bar or a club with my boyfriend and worry if I’m going to find him in the bathroom sucking dick, or getting fucked on the dance floor, or just making out with random guys. He can do whatever he wants when I’m not there. I don’t give a fuck. But when I tell him that I’m the jealous one, I’m insecure, I’m hung up and not sex-positive.”

But being permissive doesn’t mean it has to be a fucking free-for-all. It’s ok to tell your partner(s) that you don’t want them fucking tricks in your bed, or that when you guys go out that’s your time, or don’t be on Scruff when you’re on a date with each other, or whatever other boundaries are going to help you manage what can sometimes be a really scary thing: sharing your man (or woman or lover or people) with someone else.

Jealousy is natural. Jealousy can be sexy: it can mean: You are mine. You are valuable to me and I don’t want to lose you. And that can be hot. Unchecked jealousy can be overwhelming and scary, but a little bit of jealousy can make my dick hard. It makes me feel wanted.

This idea that we all just need to get over ourselves and our bodies and our sexuality and be 100% open all the time is, in my opinion, ridiculous. Unless that’s what you and your partner(s) all want: which is also totally fucking cool.

“It sounds like he’s not listening to you,” I tell Tim. “But what if he does hear you and then decides he can’t give you what you need?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’d try harder to be cooler.”

I remember driving up Vermont Canyon into Griffith Park. I was horny. I wanted to get my dick sucked. I wanted to fuck. I was in a predatory state of mind. I drove up the hill, LA sprawling and endless, the sky that forever blue. I parked and walked into a canyon where I knew guys cruise.

This was ten years ago. I walked down trails that cut through the canyon, making eye contact with guys I found hot. I fucked a super hot Latin guy in his 20’s who had the kind of broad shoulders, muscled chest, and belly that drove me crazy. He also had one of those big asses that made it hard not to cum instantly. Holding back as long as I could I tried to make sure he wouldn’t forget me for a few days. After, standing up, he reached around and played with his hole, tasting me on his fingers. And then he said, “Wow, man, thanks!”. The way he said “Thanks!!” made my dick so hard I pushed him to his knees and let him suck me off.

That kid deserved two loads.

Driving back up the hill I saw my boyfriend, Jared, walking into some bushes with a tall handsome man in a suit.

I almost puked. I wanted to park my car and drag that fucking suited dude into the middle of the road and beat him senseless.

I was blind with fury.

I didn’t get out of my car. I didn’t beat that suited dude senseless. I went home. I walked my dog Maggie. I jerked off a few times. And then Jared came over: we had planned to meet for dinner.

And for 45 seconds I was so mad I wanted to yell and scream and burn the whole world down.

Instead I said, “Hey baby. I was thinking of making a chicken pot pie, but now I want Sushi. Want to go get Sushi with me?”

We went to a place on Franklin I liked a lot. After dinner we walked through the Hollywood hills, the lights of the City sprawled out before us: the City burned full of endless possibilities and beauty, and Jared took my hand.

“I love you so much,” he said.

I never told him I saw him that day. Not because I was keeping secrets, and not because I thought he’d be upset or because I was building a case against him.

I didn’t say anything because it wasn’t important. He hadn’t broken our rules. Neither had I. And while for those few minutes the pain of seeing him with another man had been so overwhelming, cutting deep into all my fears and insecurities: they were mine to manage.

And let’s get real: I had stuck my dick in at least four guys that afternoon. Nothing I had felt was built on rational thought: it was pure emotion. I’m territorial. A fucking caveman. That’s something I am constantly working on: and I don’t judge myself for it. It’s who I am. But I am capable of growing beyond who I am, not because I feel I have to for them, but because I know: I want this. I am not built for monogamy. Even if I am a jealous, possessive, fucking caveman.

Here is the thing: being open isn’t always easy. Seeing the person (s) you love, being with someone else can be super fucking hot, but it can also kill your hardon. Sometimes I want to know what my partners have done, I want to hear about their adventures, and sometimes the idea of them touching someone else makes me fly into a state of blind rage.

It’s contextual. And the rules we set, the boundaries, are there to protect us.

So that’s what I tell Tim.

“It isn’t about you being cool or not cool. It’s about creating an environment where both of your needs are being met. Not just his.”

Because that’s the whole fucking point, isn’t it? That all of our needs are met. That we get to be allowed to grow and be the people we are. Even if it means sometimes growing apart.

And the rules: the rules and the boundaries are our friends. They create safe places where we get to explore and play and learn and grow. And sometimes we will decide to change the rules, be more open or less open, sometimes we will find this isn’t who we are, or what we want.

Being open can be scary as fuck. It is something that needs to be talked about. A lot. The boundaries need to be clear. And all parties need to be committed to a mutual respect.

But before any of that can work, before we should even begin this journey, we need to find the courage to be honest about who we are. About what we need. Sometimes I love being open. Sometimes I need to close it down. Sometimes I want to go fuck the world with my partner(s) and sometimes all I want is them. Sometimes I’m jealous and sometimes I’m scared.

I’m a human being. And human beings are super complicated. We are built on emotion and logic. Not always in equal measure.. We are full of pain and fear and loss and desire: we are all endless lights full of unlimited possibility: and it’s ok. All of it. Every fucking thing: we are all just doing the best we can. Even when we fuck it all up.

And trust me: I’ve really fucked it all up. On an epic scale.

Here’s what matters the most to me: That my partner(s) and I treat each other with love and kindness and respect. And that we communicate and listen and that we be willing to really see the other. If we do these things, then we are usually going to be ok.

And when we aren’t ok then we do our best to stand together, holding on as tight as we can because even as it all falls apart we can provide support.

So go fuck, be open or closed, have threeways and fourways, cruise and explore and talk endlessly all night long and live your life as big and as full as you can: no matter what that means. And hold each other. Because for real, life can be fucked up: it can throw us so far off course we have no idea how to find our way back. But that‘s why we have each other.

About a month ago Tom Bianchi found himself locked out of his Instagram account. Bianchi is a well known HIV activist and photographic historian of gay culture, most notably for his photos taken in Fire Island in the 80’s. A photo of his had been reposted on Instagram. The photo, “Untitled 457” shows a naked man sitting on a bed, his back to us, looking out a window.

Instagram decided that this photo, with a man’s butt barely revealed, had broken its Community Guidelines.

After a huge amount of pressure and backlash, Instagram re-instated Bianchi’s account.

And while, in my opinion, it never should have been taken down in the first place, it’s great that it is now back up. Tom Bianchi is a Queer hero. He has chronicled LGBTQ history for over 20 years.

But what happens when you aren’t Tom Bianchi, with a huge fan base willing to come out and fight for you? What about young queer and trans artists out there struggling for recognition, chronicling the world around them, whether through photos or videos or writing, who don’t meet the standards of Instagram or Facebook, or Tumblr? Who stands up for them?

I stayed out of this public debate. I decided that I wanted to stand back and wait, to see where things headed: if there would be any real change in how Social Media and the Mainstream Media handled our sexuality and our bodies.

That change never came.

Instead it feels like we keep moving slowly in a direction that is more repressive: restrictions put on our physicality, on our sexuality, on our gender: and how we are allowed or not allowed to express these things.

In 2019 many young artists’ careers live and die because of social media. It is a way for someone relatively unknown to build a following, to create a network of fans, to gain exposure.

It is a way to create visibility for a community often forced into the shadows.

And that is important.

As queer people, our bodies and our sexuality have been used against us for decades. Our gender has become political. Who we love and how we love, who we fuck, is political.

Facebook recently added to their guidelines a ban on all images and writings (including your private chats) that were soliciting sex or graphic in nature. This means that technically you aren’t even allowed to have sexy chat in your private messenger on Facebook between consenting adults.

Tumblr purged all accounts and images with nudity and overly sexual content, often times including shirtless gay men.

For a long time my ex-husband, Alex and I, used Tumblr, as a way to flirt. We created a joint account and we would add pictures of guys we found hot. We would take pics of ourselves: I won’t lie, my ass and dick, pics of me getting fucked, were all over Tumblr. You can have your opinions about this and your feelings and thoughts, but the truth is, we were just having fun. We were flirting, we were venturing out into a larger arena and expressing and exploring our sexuality.

And from the comments, and the amount of followers we had, people seemed to be enjoying our new exhibitionism.

We live in a world where sexuality, especially Queer and Trans Sexuality, are demonized. A world where our bodies are politicized and scrutinized: where a female nipple, the hint of balls, too much exposed ass, is considered “porn” even when the context is art, or just naturalism.

A world where how we fuck and who we fuck: how we love, is judged amoral.

One of the excuses being used by Social Media platforms is that we live in a global community and while they don’t believe in censorship, they also want to be sensitive to other cultures and groups who don’t share the same values. So…we don’t believe in censorship but we are going to censor you because we don’t want to upset a group of people who find your sexuality and your body to be morally wrong. Got it Instagram. Thanks.

I’ve thought a lot about how to respond to all this. I’ve tried to understand that companies like Instagram and Facebook have a right to define the content that is seen on their platforms, but to be honest, fuck them. Enough is enough.

Let’s call it like is: censorship. As queer people we have lived our whole lives being censored. We have been shamed and made to feel unworthy. We have been shoved to the side so as not to upset groups who find our way of life to be amoral.

I’m not arguing for allowing “porn” or graphic sexual images on Facebook on Instagram. But what I am saying is that showing some ass, or women showing their breasts, or shirtless guys, or queer people kissing should not be something we should be afraid of showing for fear of being locked out of our accounts.

It’s hard for me to make sense of this: it goes against everything I believe. It goes against everything I think is logical.

Human beings are sexual creatures. Fucking is fun. It is hot to look at pictures of other people fucking, showing off.

But there’s another component here that isn’t just about sex: our bodies are vast, uncharted, and beautiful territories: they are gorgeous and full of artistic and creative potential. Why can’t we show this off?
Why are we so afraid of allowing people the opportunity to explore their otherness, their gender, their sexuality, their beauty, their humanness?

I think it’s great that we all came out to fight for Tom Bianchi. But we need keep fighting. We need to keep the pressure on.

I show ass all the time on my Instagram account. I talk about being HIV Positive. I try to be as sex positive, and proud of who I am as a 50-year-old-HIV-Positive-Queer-Man as I can be. And I refuse to hide or to back down. I refuse to be made invisible.

I’ve been “shadow banned” (a process where with no warning or notice Instagram removes your ability to be seen on hashtags), I’ve been reported and I’ve been blocked on all my social media accounts. I’ve received threatening and incredibly unkind messages from users who troll the internet looking for people to attack. I’ve been called a slut, told I deserve to die from AIDS, that I am a worthless fag. But I don’t back down.

Because we can’t let them silence us. We are beautiful. Our bodies and our sexuality, our gender, our fluidity.

It is easy to believe that we had a major win last month. Instagram caved. Bianchi is back up. And that is a win. A huge fucking win. But we need to make sure we are still out there, celebrating who we are, and being as loud and as queer as possible.

We are only silenced if we let them silence us. We are only invisible if we let them take away our visibility.

I’m gonna show ass and talk about being Queer and Positive and be who I am, as loud and as visible as possible.

And fuck anyone who tries to tell us we aren’t worthy, who tries to censor us or push us to the side.

So go be as queer and beautiful as you want. Show those bodies. Make out on the streets. And stand up for those of us who might live in places where they are living under oppression.
Because that’s what these platforms don’t get: by allowing people like Bianchi, or someone like me, or any of the other LGBTQ people out there who refuse to back down, to be vocal and visible we are giving a voice to those still living in a world where their voice is being suppressed.

That should be what our community guidelines stand for. Not more censorship.

When I was a young man in New York City, it was easy to get laid. There were parks and bathrooms, back rooms, more bathhouses and sex clubs than you knew what to do with—all the ways gay men had to get off before the internet.

I can clearly picture one day in particular in my late teens, cruising the Rambles in Central Park. It was late spring, nearly warm enough to be summer. A breeze came in off the lake, the sun was just beginning to set. I spent hours wandering those trails, getting my dick sucked in the bushes, fucking a sexy construction worker, getting fucked by a businessman in a dark suit. It was one of those magical days when everything felt free: like an adventure.

When I moved to LA in 1999, I remember discovering all the little cruise spots around town. The trails of Griffith Park were filled with men fucking and sucking. I used to love walking in those dusty LA hills, the sun burning bright, sucking dick and getting fucked, making out, connecting with strangers I might never see again. There were hidden stairways and garages along Hyperion Ave in Silver Lake where orgies would converge after the neighborhood gay bar, Le Barcito, closed for the night.

Needless to say, I think sex is good for you. I’m done with slut shaming and sexual morality, especially in the gay community. We have a long history of sexual freedom and exploration and I refuse to be told that we have to sacrifice our sexuality and our “sluttiness” for our social acceptance.

I miss cruising. I miss the random adventures, the potential friends, the openness around sex and desire. There’s a spark and connection that happens when you meet someone in person like that: both of you there to fuck. No pretense, no shame: I think there is something beautiful in that.

And I think we should fight to bring that back. We live in a country that is based on personal freedom, and yet we continue to demonize sexuality and expression. Why, in a City like LA, don’t we have dark rooms? Why, if a bar is for 21 and over, can’t we fuck where we want, be who we want? Why do we allow our government to police our morality and to define the limits of our sexual expression?

The rise of gay dating apps like Grindr and Scruff has undeniably led to some of cruising’s decline, I’m also not someone who thinks they’re harbingers of the gay apocalypse. I met my husband and a few boyfriends through them. I’ve made some amazing friends while traveling on the apps. And I’ve gotten laid all over the world thanks to Scruff! Cruising on my phone is still cruising.

But I won’t lie, the intensity, excitement, pursuit, and camaraderie of cruising in real life is something that’s hard to capture on a phone.

One of the few places left where cruising isn’t dead is the gay bar; it’s encouraged, almost expected. Working gay bars in LA has given me a front-row seat to watch all of the ways guys come together to cruise. There’s something beautiful in watching two guys enter a bar alone, spend the night circling each other and making eyes from afar, only to end up kissing, touching, talking, and eventually leaving together. It’s so immediate and exciting—a kind of humanity that you won’t get cruising online, where chatting with guys can feel isolating by comparison.

I want to say again: I love the gay apps. They have changed my life for the better. They have opened the door to a larger gay community in ways cruising never could have. But I think we need a balance: I think there is an art to going to a bar alone, with the intent of meeting someone: to talking and flirting, that can get lost if we spend all our time on our phones. Also, it builds our self-esteem, and we end up spending time talking to guys we might not want to fuck, but who could turn out to be friends, where on the apps we are likely to just swipe by, never taking the time to get to know those dudes who are outside our sexual tastes.

Cruising is part and parcel of gay and queer DNA. Walt Whitman cruised. In his poetic imagination, all of early America was a democratic cruising ground. From the Fire Island Pines to Provincetown’s beaches and elsewhere around the world, cruising has always been an integral part of how gay people have come together to form bastions of acceptance in a bigoted world. And while public cruising and the places where it happens will likely never truly, fully die, the decline is disconcerting. It means we’re losing something essential to our community.

One night while working the door at a bar, I was approached by a gorgeous guy in his 20s. He asked if he could play with my beard. I’m not a big fan of strangers running their hands through my beard and touching my face, but he was hot; I was willing to let him do a lot more than just play with my beard. We talked for a few minutes and ended up making out. He slipped my hand down his pants and let me play with his ass. He asked me if I was into any kinks. I told him I was what I like to call “LA vanilla”—a little piss, maybe, but mostly just fucking, nothing too intense. Kissing and cuddling, however, are essential. My only true fetish is for nice guys; I get really, really turned on by a nice guy.

But I told him I was open to exploring. Like I said: He was hot.

He proceeded to take out his phone and show me a video of him on all fours, naked, with his arm reaching around to slowly slip a very green, very round apple inside his butt. With great care, he then pushed it slowly back out into the palm of his hand. Then he did it again. And again. And he then turned around and proceeded to eat the apple with a wide grin.

He put his phone away and stood before me, proud. I wasn’t sure what to say.

“Did that turn you on?” he asked.

“You definitely have a great ass,” I responded, trying to be open.

“I like to get fisted, too,” he continued.

“Like I said, you have a beautiful ass.”

I’m not into fisting, or into putting food up someone’s ass, but I do love butts. We made out a bit longer and made plans to meet up at a later date.
If we hadn’t met in person—if he had just sent me that video online, for example—I probably would have blocked him. But because we met at the bar, I got to see him for something more than his fetishes, as a human being. Someone who I liked kissing and talking to. Someone who I’d like to spend some time with, even if I didn’t want to fist him.

A few years ago, one slow Wednesday night, while working the door at another LA gay bar, my husband, Alex, came to visit me. We noticed a super hot guy at the bar we had never seen before. The three of us flirted and got to talking, and then Alex and I took turns making out with him. He kept grabbing both our dicks. I checked in with the bartender, and the three of us headed into a back room. We made out and fucked around, and then Alex and I took turns fucking him.

Afterward, naked and spent, we sat on the couch and talked. It was easy, comfortable.

Later that night, after Alex had left, and I was closing up the bar, the guy we had fucked found me and told me he had nowhere to go. He had lost his job, and earlier that day, he had finally been evicted from his apartment. His car was packed full of his belongings. He was alone and afraid, and in an instant, he went from an amazingly sexy guy to something far more intimate. I let him sleep in our guest studio for a few nights, until he was able to find a safe place.
If he had asked me this on an app like Grindr, I, again, probably would have blocked him. He would have been a stranger, someone I had no real connection to.

But I had been inside him, kissed him, and held him. We had connected, if only for those few moments, and that lent him a kind of humanity no two-dimensional avatar could.

Gay bars—alongside the few other places where cruising is alive today, like porn arcades or bathhouses—offer safe places to connect with one another in that intimate way, and we should fight their decline. After all, there is a beauty to sex. Whether between friends or lovers or strangers, there is magic in those moments as you lose yourself in another. And I believe that those moments can enlighten us and even elevate us to a higher plane. If something that beautiful is endangered, isn’t it worth protecting?

Maybe it’s time we stop letting morality and sexual repression define who we are. Maybe it’s time to be radical. To kiss openly in public. To flirt, to demand that our queer spaces allow for our sexuality. To say fuck you to oppression and the denial of who we are. Maybe it’s time to be gay as fuck and refuse to allow anyone to tell us how we should behave!